When I got back from Hawaii, I was greeted with a snowy negative eighty degree temperature swing and, to add insult to injury, was forced to dig out my driveway before we could unload our luggage from the car. “Fuck this,” I said, as my thinned blood rebelled in the frigid air, “Now I know why old people move to Florida.” The next say I called my friend in Costa Rica and, a month later, found myself in a beach town in Guanacaste, once again enjoying ninety degree temps while my wife and daughter shivered at home.  

“This is the life,” I said, enjoying a beer on my friend’s veranda. “No wonder you moved down here.” 

“Whenever I get sick of work,” Renee said, “I just go outside and it’s like I’m on vacation again.”

The gated beachside compound where Renee lives is filled with newish retirees from Canada and America with some renters and Airbnb nomads thrown in. The previous day, I’d met Gabriella, a lovely young Costa Rican woman renting the studio attached to the back of my friend’s condo. A teacher by training, she’d segued into the wellness industry and rode a scooter to a resort early every morning to teach tourists yoga classes. Fetching with a lovely smile, flowing locks and sparkling eyes, it was obvious from her trim physique that she practiced what she preached. As we chatted about how many women in my town patronize our local yoga studio, she told me something I never knew. “Yoga was once almost exclusively practiced by men,” she said. “It’s only fairly recently that more women started doing it.” Boy, did that change. Then, after she scooted away with her yoga mat strapped to her seat, I let out a happy sigh. I may be married, but I’m not dead. 

The next day, after an early morning hike in the surrounding hills, we went into town and ate a “desayuno tipico” of eggs, black rice and beans, sausage, plantains, and washed it down with some local beer. (Beer with breakfast? Hey, I was on vacation.) Then after a siesta to avoid the midday heat, we sat on Renee’s porch with a cigars and watched baby monkeys swinging in the trees above us while the adults seemed content wrap their tails around a branch and chill out. Oddly enough, they all seemed to poop at the same time. Of course, I ended stepping in some of it once or twice. 

“So, you don’t own the studios behind you?” I asked Renee.

“No, they belong to a guy who lives in Virginia,” he said. “Gabriella’s been house sitting in one for several months while she does her yoga gig.” 

“And by scooter to boot,” I said.

“Cars are very expensive here.” 

“Not just that,” I said. “The roads are uh, interesting. Last night I saw a toddler riding on the handlebars of a motorcycle.”  

“I’ll give you a tour of the compound later and show you the studios. They’re quiet and very private.” And that folks, is when the fun began. 

“Oh dear,” I said, as we stood by Gabriella’s doorway. “This young woman seems to have suffered a wardrobe malfunction.” 

“What should we do?” Renee asked. 

Gabriella had washed her clothes and left them to dry outside on a folding rack while she was at work. Whether it was the wind or an animal, the rack had been knocked over and now all her yoga pants, t-shirts, socks, blouses, and underthings were on the ground – small lacy lingerie things. 

“We should at least pick them up,” I said. 

“I don’t know,” Renne said, understandably hesitant. “That’s kind of private stuff.” 

“How would you feel if you came home and found all your underwear in the dirt?” 

“You have a point.” 

So, Renee set the rack upright and rehung what was still damp while I neatly folded the woman’s “delicates” and placed then on a nearby table. “Don’t try and put one in your pocket,” Renne joked. At least I hoped he was joking. 

 “I live with two women and handle ladies’ underwear every day,” I said. “Trust me, the romance is gone.”  

“Do you think Gabriella’s going to be pissed?” 

“Dude, we’re not going to tell her a thing.”

Long before I met my wife, I lived with a girlfriend in an apartment without a washer and dryer, forcing me to drag our dirty clothes to a laundromat once a week. Then, when I returned, I’d fold her stuff and mine while watching television the couch. I know, I was a wonderful boyfriend, but my tender industriousness once got me into serious trouble.

“What’s this?” my old girlfriend shrieked one day, waving a very tiny and racy pair of panties in my face. “I found them in the cushions!” 

“They’re not yours?” I asked. 

“You know they’re not mine! They’re too small!”  I know women have “everyday” lingerie and “special ones” and that particular piece of satin and lace was definitely the later. 

“Whoever they belong to,” I said. “Must’ve left them in the wash and they got mixed up with your stuff at the laundromat. Then, when I was folding clothes on the couch, they got wedged into the cushions.” Sound reasonable, but my girlfriend wasn’t convinced. “You expect me to believe that?” she yelled. Man, that was an awkward moment but, eventually, I managed to mollify my old girlfriend with what was, I swear, the god’s honest truth – but I don’t think she ever quite fully trusted me after that again. And they were a nice pair of panties. That day I discovered women get very defensive when it comes to lingerie.  

“Better Gabriella never knows,” I told Renee. 

The next morning, as my friend and I were drinking coffee on his porch, Gabriella walked stiffly past us with a yoga mat in one hand and her motorcycle helmet in the other. Without saying a word, she hopped on her scooter and took off. 

“She knows,” Renee said. 

“Probably,” I said, shrugging. “No good deed ever goes unpunished.” 

When I told my wife the story that night, she had a good chuckle but, when I recounted the tale to a female friend after I returned home, she gasped, “You didn’t!”

“What was I supposed to do?” I said, feeling my face start to burn. “Would you want to come home and find a monkey wearing your bra as a hat?” After walking away, I began to think that maybe I should’ve left things well enough alone. I like to think I was being helpful but, by telling Renee not to say anything, I was also aware how our actions could be misconstrued. I’d hate to think that young woman thought I was some kind of perverted middle aged man. The again, in our effort to help people, sometimes we only make things worse. Did I do the right thing or go totally of bounds? I will let you, my dear readers, make that decision. 

And no, I didn’t take home any lacy souvenirs.